Until you accept that the aim of Leftists is to hurt, not help, none of their actions makes sense

Leftism, Liberalism, Progressivism are all words for the politics of hate. They hate the world about them.

And with motivations like that behind them, principles pass them by like a fart in a breeze

Saturday, February 08, 2003

THE GERMANIC ORIGINS OF THE ENGLISH

A picture is said to be better than 1,000 words so this link to a BBC educational site should help fix in all our minds the fact that the English are historically the Western branch of the Germanic people -- and that the basics of what is German should also therefore be the basics of what is English. Though 1500 years of history can create a lot of differences, of course. The words in the yellow text-box are particularly relevant to my constant stress on the historical importance of political decentralization among the Germanic peoples.

Andrew Ian Dodge is one of several people who have put to me that young men are attracted to Leftism because Leftist women are more sexually accessible. And certainly in my own youth the Leftist ladies did seem to be less attached to their pants than others. But that brings us to the next question: Why? I think the answer is pretty straightforward:

Leftism is intrinsically rebellious
Young people are instrinsically rebellious
Female sexual promiscuity is intrinsically rebellious.

So the three go together.

I have just posted Andrew’s email here (Post of 7th.). It is worth a read. I think he even outdoes me for forthrightness!

Mainstream politicians are not unaware of the issue. It arose in South Carolina in 2001. Addressing the young men of "Boys State", the Democratic chairman, Dick Hartpootlian, declared that the Democrats were the party of "beer and girls". Not to be outdone, the Republican chairman, Henry McMaster, countered that the Republicans were the party of "cold beer and hot girls". You can imagine how the feminazi hens clucked over that one!

On a much darker note, read here how a former Leftist is horrified by the hatred that drove him during his Leftist youth.

************************

OVERGENERALIZING ABOUT GERMANY AND FRANCE

Andrew Sullivan’s recent article in the Sunday Times seems very superficial to me. Equating Germany and France because of their present alliance is ludicrous. You would not want to tell the average Frenchman that he had anything in common with the Germans!

And saying that neither country has the social and organizational diversity (pluralism) of the English-speaking countries is ridiculous too. I am sure that there are just as many sporting clubs, special interest organizations, and school/parent associations in France and Germany as anywhere else.

And we must not confuse Germany's present government with Germany. Germany and Australia both normally have pretty conservative governments but with occasional lapses into Leftist craziness. Australia's last such crazy-Leftist government (under Whitlam) was in the 70s. It lasted only 4 years. I don't see Germany’s Schroeder lasting much longer either. The recent Land elections (German State elections) gave huge majorities to the German conservative parties so that should give Chancellor Schroeder a hard time in the Bundesrat (German Senate) if I understand German politics rightly.

But if I think Sullivan is wrong on the points above, I think he was absolutely right in his judgement of my hero: Ronald Reagan. Contrary to all the Leftist mockery, Sullivan said some time ago of the Gipper: “He was one of the most intellectual presidents in history. If you doubt it, you need to read Sullivan’s article.

******************************

ELSEWHERE

Libertarians will like this link. It shows how the internet is enabling small companies and individuals to do the sort of basic and applied scientific research that could once only be done by big organizations -- generally government-funded ones.

Bob Park has a good laugh at the “Freedom Car” -- GWB’s sop to the Greenies -- but agrees that it is a cheap sop at least.

If the opposite of pro is con then the opposite of progress must be congress. As a libertarian, I LIKE that! From Commonsense & Wonder

It is hard to believe that this I love Saddam article could be published in any Western newspaper. It is eerily reminiscent of the sort of “happy worker” stuff pro-Stalin Western Leftists used to write years ago. Yet it appeared a few days ago in the Washington Post. Via Commonsense & Wonder

********************************

Comments? Email me. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my "First Draft" site instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

Friday, February 07, 2003

LEFTIST INFLUENCES ON YOUTH

Ed Mick has a great follow-up to my initial post on why it is that young people tend to be more Leftist than their seniors. Ed sees youthful Leftism as being mainly the outcome of the institutional influences that young people are exposed to. He sees these as:

[German Foreign Minister Joschka] Fischer said that although Iraq has constantly violated U.N. resolutions and Saddam's regime is "terrible for the Iraqi people," the inspections must go on.

And comments:

Apparently in Gerhard Shroeder's political philosophy, constant violations and a terrible regime aren't enough for UN action. If Iraq flew a chemical weapon-carrying drone plane into the Bundestag, German politicians would apologize for leaving it in such an inconvenient spot.

*******************************

THE LEFTIST MIND .... CONTINUED

"Democrats will trample over a thousand poor people to throw a rock at a rich man." --Tom Adkins of "The Common Conservative," on the Bush tax-cut plan. Via The Federalist

Whacking day has a good summary of the strange and totally dishonest minds of Leftists. That Leftists NEED to criticize and be different is the most obvious explanation of such strange behaviour.

Tim Gillin (post of Feb. 2nd.): Concern for the poor is admirable and charity is a virtue, but the recent advances in China shows that Adam Smith did more for the world's poor than all socialists put end to end.

Cold Fury has found some remarkable honesty and good sense about Iraq from two Leftists. It shows that there is a small minority of Leftists who really are humanitarian.

It is often vaguely asserted that the peaceniks and do-gooders who urge that Saddam should be dealt with by "negotiation" are following the same strategy as the foolish peaceniks of the 1930s who tried to appease Hitler. Someone who remembers the 1930s very well writes here that the parallels are in fact enormous. The peaceniks of today are saying almost exactly what the peaceniks of the 30s said. They never learn.

The Federalist has some good quotes from the speech of President Bush, given at the memorial service for the astronauts of the Columbia at the Johnson Space Center a few days ago.

The administration has assured North Korea it has no intention of invading [but] it has left open the possibility of a pre-emptive air attack on North Korean nuclear plants. THAT'S what I like to hear! More at the Judd blog.

Thursday, February 06, 2003

PITY OUR CONSERVATIVE COLLEGE STUDENTS

David Horowitz has for some time been running a campaign to get some political balance onto US college and university campuses. But he has a long way to go. I have just received an email from a US college student that details the tripe he has to endure as part of his studies. The bias and inconsistency is so bad that it is actually painful for him. Students should not have to endure propaganda in lieu of scholarship. Read his email here. It has its funny side.

*******************************

VIN FERRARI

Vin Ferrari also has a good summary up about the oppression of a conservative student by a “liberal” academe. He has lots of pithy summaries up in fact. Like this one:

2 great liberal contradictions

Saddam Hussein doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction. We definitely shouldn't go in there because if we do he might use them.

Saddam Hussein has no connection to Al Qaeda, etc., because Saddam Hussein is hated by Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. If we attack him, they will retaliate against us around the world.

******************************

GERMANIC LIBERTIES AND PRUSSIA

Razib has posted an excellent but necessarily long post on whether our Anglospheric respect for individual liberties is of Christian or Germanic origin. He and I agree that Germanic origin maps respect for the individual a lot better than the prevalence of Christianity does.

Razib gives a rather more wide-ranging history lesson in support of his views than I have done (see the second half of my article here) so far but he seems to have more difficulty with the Prussian phenomenon than I do. Roughly, Prussia is the Northeastern part of Germany which, over the course of the 19th century, gradually came to dominate the whole of Germany. And the Prussian army had a famous tradition of requiring that its troops be Kadaver gehorsam (corpselike obedient) so how that squares with a Germanic respect for individual liberty does at first seem very difficult to explain indeed.

The point is, however, that, like many other groups, Germans encompass a wide variety of people within their ranks and Prussia is only one part of Germany (and in fact for most of its history it was only partly German -- including large numbers of Poles, Silesians and other non-Germans). Furthermore, the Prussian ascendancy was both very recent and very short-lived. It dates essentially from the French surrender at Sedan in 1870 and ended with the flight of the Kaiser to Holland in 1918 -- to be succeeeded by the very un-Prussian Weimar Republic. Those 48 years are undoubtedly of enormous significance to the world but all that they show essentially is that Prussian militarism had some initial success but ended up destroying itself.

Prior to Sedan, Germany was a disunited and decentralized agglomeration that generations of Prussians, French and others tried unsuccessfully to subdue. And after Sedan, unity of a sort was achieved and maintained only by the diplomatic genius of Bismarck. And after the remarkable restraint provided by Bismarck was dispensed with by the new Kaiser, the German Empire very quickly self-destructed -- in World War I. And Hitler’s attempt to revive it went the same way. So now Germany is back to something much more like what it always was -- a nation with a strongly decentralized power structure in the form of the various Land (State) governments. And that is of course exactly the same structure that certain other countries of mainly Germanic origin (the USA, Canada and Australia) have adopted too. And “devolution” is rapidly leading to a similar state of affairs in Britain as well.

In short, from a historical perspective, the Prussian ascendancy was no more than a short and atypical blip in the more than 2000 years of decentralized power in Germany so cannot possibly be the major source of any generalizations about Germany that we might wish to make.

***********************************

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Today is Ronald Reagan’s birthday. I wish him as happy a birthday as is possible in his present reduced state. After what he did for his country and the world, no-one is more entitled to have his birthday honoured. There is a great photo of him here. One of his typical sayings:

"One legislator accused me of having a 19th century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an 18th century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law abiding citizens should be one of government's primary concerns."

**********************************

MAJOR CENSORSHIP IN THE LEFTIST MEDIA

“Media bias” is not the right word for it. Jim Miller shows that what people get from the major U.S. newspapers is straight-out, old-fashioned censorship that would do a wartime censor proud. As Jim shows at length, if you had relied totally on such newspapers for your information about the world, you WOULD NEVER KNOW that the leaders of major European nations such as Britain, Poland, Spain and Italy had all signed a letter supporting the U.S. policy on Iraq. Infinitely less important and less newsworthy stories were run instead.

********************************

ELSEWHERE

Michael Darby is keeping up his campaign of awareness about Zimbabwe with another firsthand report.

Under the heading: Are Catholics ethically primitive?, the Wicked one has put up a major rant that seeks to explain the spinelessness of the French over Iraq as an outcome of their Catholicism. His concluding sentence: Chirac is an amoral, corrupt sleazeball.

********************************

Comments? Email me. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my "First Draft" site instead or check my HomePage for a new blog address.

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

JACKO IS NOT SO BAD

Watched by some 15 million UK viewers, pop idol Michael Jackson (who in 1993 bought off a paedophilia accusation, paying UKP11M) revealed his obsession with children and said youngsters of 12 sometimes shared his bed and/or bedroom at his 'Neverland' adventure complex - one such boy, a former cancer case, was presented, smiling and tightly clutching Jackson's hand. Said Jackson: "Why can't you share your bed? That's the most loving thing to do, to share your bed with someone." At one point he whispered "I am a Peter Pan at heart" - though apparently meaning simply 'lover of children', not an abuser.

The ITV programme (by ITV's Martin Bashir, who once famously interviewed Princess Diana sympathetically about her failing marriage) linked Jackson's love of children to his piteous claims of having been abused as a child - his father beating him (his siblings agree) with anything that came to hand, and his older brothers making love to girls while he was in the same room and had to pretend to be asleep.

Jackson said he would kill himself if he woke up one morning to find the world empty of children for him to love, but he denied any sexual element to his involvements. Although he was already raising three children (supposedly his own biological offspring) apart from their mothers, he said he was thinking of adopting more children, perhaps two from each continent.

{With these revelations, the popular Jackson seemed on course to re-brand the world's image of 'paedophilia'; or alternatively - in view of likely renewed police scrutiny and outrage from paedohysterics -- he might become the world's richest jailbird. In either case, any open-minded person would agree he had done more good for children than many hundreds of Haringey 'social workers' put together.}

Subsequently, columns in the Daily Mail and Sun condemned Jackson as evil, sick and dangerous; the Independent said he was weird but not wicked; the Guardian actually ran a column titled "Why Jacko is a great dad_but only if you want your child to be a tortured genius" (G2, 5 ii 03, p. 14); and the Times said nothing.

At ITV's phone-in, comments were 80% in favour of Jackson. Sales of Jackson's record 'Thriller' shot up by 500% compared with the previous week's performance and his Greatest Hits package 'HIStory' rocketed by 1,000% at British retail chain HMV. Jackson himself understandably condemned Bashir's treacherous interviewing and reportage as "deceptive" and "tawdry"; but it was quite possible Jackson would have the last laugh if there were no complaints from the many children he had entertained at Neverland. {American Nobelist Carleton Gajdusek managed to adopt and help about 50 children before one of them was lured by police to make a complaint.}

Jackson found considerable support at the ITV website and several parents came forward to say they would be sending their children to his Neverland playground.

Americans were not as supportive and Brits and Europeans, but polls showed that even 51% of US adults thought Jackson "misunderstood." In California's Santa Barbara County, where Jackson's Neverland ranch is located, District Attorney Thomas W. Sneddon, Jr., condemned the ``media circus'' around the documentary and called Jackson's admission that he has slept in the same bed as children ``much ado about nothing.'' ``Sleeping in bed with a kid is not a crime that I know of,'' Sneddon told the Santa Barbara News-Press.

In the Observer (9 ii), two articles defended Jackson as surely a better-than-average father - certainly better than some parents seen in supermarkets, and also better than quite a lot of Hollywood parents. Apparently Jackson's older children are nice, bright, unaffected etc. Altogether, it looked as if there was some chance that Michael Jackson could succeed in abating paedohysteria.

I think you missed the most obvious reason why young men go for lefty causes. Right-of-centre women are colder and less ... um ... “willing” than their left-wing counterparts. The socialist/Democrats have the best parties and that is where all the good looking women are. Sasha is the first right-of-centre woman I have ever been serious with, and she is to be my wife. I know quite a few soft-Labour/Blairites who are that way inclined merely because the Tory group at their university was full
of oiks and was bereft of single women.

I said that in a rather cruder way in the comments section of Iain's blog. Its very simple: you men want to get laid, they go where the loose(r) women are. The left knows this and use it to their advantage as often as possible. The left is very good at using penis-politics, the right would rather not even think of it.

My way of getting volunteers to a campaign? Very easy, get a damn fine looking woman who seems to be unattached (ie no wedding ring). Guys will volunteer to go out in a blizzard if they think they can get into her knickers. It is pathetic but it works like a charm!

I got in a bit of a row with Tory woman over this point. She wanted to get more "young people" involved in the party. I told her how to do it...she was not willing to listen. You need to get people involved via fun and partying, then you introduce the work side. I tried to explain the main motivation for a 19 year old Tory-leaning bloke is not politics most of the time.

(Text posted in “Comments” facilities often seems to get lost so I also reproduce below what Andrew said on Iain’s blog:)

A big reason that young adults (male) are left-wing in sympathy is fairly obvious. The right never like to state it; well barring me. Let's face it in the thinking of a young male it’s pretty simple: socialist women put out, right-of-centre ones don't.

Do you honestly thnk that all the young men who hung around with the hippies in the '60s were in it for the politics or the drugs?

Or as I have been known to put it: "a Conservative is a former socialist who has gotten married and had daughters."

(NB: If this is a bit off the wall...sorry. I am still stuck in Maine at Her Majesty's Immigration Service's pleasure. Think The Shining with no bleeding walls.)

Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Having been on campus in the Sixties, yet a conservative from the beginning, I think I have another reason the Left attracts the young: Kids are protected.

When things are wrong, grownups are supposed to fix them. When we have a war, it's bad. Somebody is supposed to fix it. Failure to fix (when the grownup is supposedly omnipotent) demonstrates that the grownup likes the war. Otherwise, the grownup would fix it. The Kids demand it. But he doesn't. Thus, it's the grownup's fault. Government is the grownup.

Kids are in artificially extended adolescence, exacerbated by a reduction in the education of how the world has harsh edges (save for those historical issues condemning America) and people just have to cope.

My kids are take-charge, confident, kind, and conservative. One reason, I believe, is that we did not race to protect them from every possible inconvenience. They were encouraged to solve their own problems, which, I suspect, gave them an intuitive grasp of the concept that not all problems can be solved. Not even by Big Daddy.

****************************

COMPARING NAZISM AND COMMUNISM

I gave a link yesterday to an article by Martin Malia which looked at the question of whether Communism was to be preferred to Nazism. Malia basically concluded that the history we have of the Soviet period is so full of lies that it is still too early to make a fully-informed judgment. The link I gave, however, leads only to an extract of the article and I have not been able to find a better link so I have posted what appears to be the main body of the article (sent to me by a reader) here until someone tells me the proper way to access it.

******************************

THOSE NAUGHTY GENES

Leftists all hate the idea that what we are is largely determined by our genes. There is a good article here which endeavours to show just what is and what is not genetically determined in us.

Richard Dawkins explains how genetic modification of food works and points out that it is a lot like computer programming.

Why Read This notes that genetically-modified crops are going great guns in China. If GM food ends up feeding one billion Chinese, the Leftist and Greenie objections to it are going to look pretty lame.

*********************************

GO GREEN!

In Global Warming And Other Eco-Myths, some of the most respected researchers in the USA explode the myths behind much of the doom and gloom of today's environmental movement. See here for more details.

In GWB's recent SOTU address he did of course try to include something for everyone -- even the Greenies. There is an article here which knocks the hydrogen car idea which formed part of the address.

There has been a vigorous debate on Oxblog recently over whether Communism was in some sense more commendable than Fascism. At the heart of the argument appears to be the old claim that Communism was "well-intentioned".

So could it be the nationalism of Fascism and Nazism that makes it particularly bad? Hardly. Nationalism has been around for a very long time and may in fact be universal but it does not normally lead to mass murder of political opponents (or imaginary political opponents). It is not even clear that extreme nationalism is particularly murderous. Mussolini’s Fascism was undoubtedly extreme in its nationalism but -- despite his occasional brutalities -- Mussolini was no mass-murderer. In fact the normal punishment for political opponents in Fascist Italy was simply a forced dose of castor oil! Give me Mussolini’s Italy rather than Stalin’s Russia any day!

What IS clear is that extreme socialism is thoroughly murderous. And James Donald explains very simply why. All four great mass-murderers of the 20th century (Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot) were extreme socialists. The Southern European Fascists were much less thoroughgoing in their socialism (degree of government control over everyday life) so were less murderous. And socialists in a democracy of course lack the power to be mass murderers.

A historically sophisticated comparison of Nazism and Communism can be found in Martin Malia's article "Judging Nazism and Communism". You can access it via this link but you will first have to register for a free subscription here. A few excerpts can also be found here

*********************************

IMMIGRATION

Tim Gillin writes:

People say Australia's John Howard runs a tough policy on immigration: Not compared to the Ancient Athenians.

And the Swiss seem to be toughening up on immigration too ... and negotiating return deals with asylum-seeker exporting nations

****************************

THE LEFT STILL LOVE THEIR DICTATORS

Amazing! The murderous Iraqui regime actually thanking the New York Times for being pro-Iraq. What a Left-wing rag! Looks like Saddam is the new Stalin -- to be defended by Leftists at all costs.

And some appalling antisemitism from a major British Left-wing newspaper here (scroll up). Nazi propaganda lives on among the Left too!

Frank Ellis points out: What we call "political correctness" actually dates back to the Soviet Union of the 1920s (politicheskaya pravil'nost' in Russian), and was the extension of political control to education, psychiatry, ethics, and behavior

*******************************

ELSEWHERE

There is a good article here showing that Prime Minister Sharon’s victory in the recent Israeli elections was also a resounding victory for conservatism.

Robert Musil takes on New York! He points out at some length that Freudian psychoanalysis is essentially quackery -- a "medical" procedure that does no good at all. Most psychologists would agree with him.

A rather persuasive argument at Chloe & Pete to the effect that a nation's foreign policy is ALWAYS dictated solely by self-interest -- with morality being no more than an afterthought.

Donald Luskin does a good job of exposing Paul Krugman's latest bout of dishonesty with statistics.

Chris Brand says Hitler betrayed just about everyone and that a lack of checks and balances in the German political system was a major factor in enabling him to do that.

Cronaca notes more strangeness emanating from Britain: Charles Clarke, the British government's education honcho, said education for its own sake was "a bit dodgy"

Michael Darby has a story by a farmer who wishes all the global warming talk was really true.

Monday, February 03, 2003

TWO SPEECHES

American Realpolitik juxtaposes the good speech about the shuttle disaster given by GWB with the great speech given about the earlier shuttle disaster 17 years ago by President Reagan. Only the Gipper can still bring tears to my eyes. That man was magic: A once-in-a-lifetime President. I will never see his like again.

And I understand how one blogger found comfort in saying the Latin invocation: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis (“Give them eternal rest O Lord and may the perpetual light shine upon them”)

***************************

YOUTH AND LEFTISM AGAIN

Scott Wickstein and one or two others have called into question the basic assumption underlying my long post of two days ago about why young people tend to lean to the Left politically. They argue that young people do NOT tend to lean to the Left.

I guess I did not spell it out properly in my post yesterday but the academic paper I cited DID show a strong correlation between age and ideology. The research was based on random general population sampling and would not have got into an academic journal unless it was pretty rigorous. So Leftism DOES tend to be a folly of youth. Like Scott, I have always been conservative and there are many like us but we all also know of many examples of age moving people to the Right -- from David Horowitz in the USA to Paddy McGuinness in Australia. So there IS something there that needs explaining.

Tim Gillin (post of Feb. 2nd.) mentioned another point that I should obviously have added to my 4-point list: Young people are often Leftist because they have just been through or are just going through an educational system (both schools and universities) that vigorously indoctrinates them with Leftist ideas. Tim's words on the subject:

How much of this is due to 'wet behind the ears' idealism and how much is due to political indoctrination through the school system, or their greater exposure to the media? Idealism doesn't neccessarily have to be leftist. Youth generally are more peer oriented and the arts/intellectual/media world has a definite left/'progressive' slant. So indoctrinating them is easier. It's interesting that young "computer geeks' and Sci Fi fans are generally less leftist, they tap into a different media network.

An interesting 6th cause of youthful Leftism was added by Eddie Thomas -- who points out on his blog that families tend to be communistic. In a family we give to each according to his/her need. So it takes a while to adjust to an outside world that is not communistic and until that adjustment is made young people tend to believe that the outside world should be like what they have been used to at home.

And the old Leftist mantra "All men are brothers" reflects that. It is an attempt to model society on the family -- but ignores the fact that family ties are a very special case of human relationships.

Tim Dunlop’s suggestion was that I should add “parental indoctrination” to my list of causes. That would obviously be true in some cases, though youthful rebellion probably makes it ineffective pretty often. At any event, it does not explain the preponderance of young people among Leftists.

******************************

IRAQ

According to Strawman Baghdad real estate prices prove that Iraquis are looking forward to being liberated by the Americans. I don't blame them.

Matthew Cowie has a good point: This seems too obvious to even say, but I've watched so many talking heads ( mostly leftists) say that Saddam Hussein does not pose an imminent threat to the United States. It is important to remind them that at 8:00AM on September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

Bob Whaley thinks that the public response to the second shuttle loss shows that America has matured as a nation.

Hello Bloggy has a good rant: What I can never understand in the reasoning of the Left is: What have the poor done to deserve the fruits of redistribution? What is it about being poor that entitles people to handouts at the expense of taxpayers? ..... More here

Another good one from the Professor: Mrs Bunyip once took it into her head that lavatory water should be blue, which didn't worry the Professor one way or the other but certainly did the dog no good.

Michael Darby reproduces an important address (not apparently otherwise online) by Sir Harry Gibbs (a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia) in which Sir Harry defends the court from affirmative action demands.

The Wicked one has found a funny photo he likes and reprints a great old poem.

Chris Brand points out the uncomfortable truth that Hitler's genocide was far from unusual even in modern history.

********************************

Comments? Email me. If there are no recent posts here, check my HomePage for a new blog address or visit my "First Draft" site here.

The long-awaited report on the death of eight-year-old Black girl Victoria Climbi‚ at the hands of her Black aunt, the aunt's Black boyfriend and the Black and black-magic-worshipping 'social workers' of Haringey drew just a little criticism for multiculturalism in the Spectator (1 ii 03). The girl's Black parents had sent her to Britain so that she and her aunt could live off Britain's welfare state. Victoria's case was dealt by altogether a hundred officials, all of whom agreed to treat her hundreds of cuts and bruises with that deference which peecee Whites feel obliged to show to Black child-rearing practices.

A Black man turned out to be America's biggest-ever child molester. {Hopefully Saint Nelson Mandela (who freely condemns President Bush as a racist who attacks the UN because it has a coloured head (Toffee Banana)) will take up the case.}

The Guardian, championing those who staff Britain's dependency culture, got very upset with the half a million British people who had backed the Sun's campaign against the Government's immigrant-seeking policies.

A teenage girl duo accused of promoting "paedophilic pop" went straight to Number One in the UK charts. Russian chicas Julia Volkova, 16, and Lena Katina, 17 - who call their group Tatu - knocked Fame Academy's David Sneddon off the top spot with their single 'All The Things She Said.' In a raunchy video which accompanied the single, the girls kiss and fondle one another while dressed in school uniforms. High priests of paedohysteria promptly called for the song's withdrawal.

Columnist Melanie Phillips wrote a blistering condemnation of the new test for British citizenship compiled by leftie Professor Bernard Crick (Daily Mail, 3 ii 03). Apparently nothing was to be required of potential immigrants apart from a few English phrases; in particular, no knowledge of British history would be required.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury, usually held to be a liberal, told the Independent that he would find it "perfectly reasonable" to lock up all asylum seekers until it was established that they presented no security risk.

Sunday, February 02, 2003

BRAVE DEEDS

Dreadful news that our brave American brothers have lost a second space shuttle. It took Americans to attempt something as bold as reusable space technology and then entrust their lives to it. I remember vividly seeing on TV President Reagan’s address to America after the first loss. He struck just the right note (as always): A combination of dignified sorrow and a determination not to be daunted by the immense challenges of space

*********************************

LEFTISTS HAVE NO FORESIGHT

From the Leftists of the 1930s who thought Hitler and Mussolini were good guys to the Leftists of today, Leftists never seem to be able to learn. When the USA finally goes in to Iraq and topples Saddam, there is absolutely no doubt that what they will find in Iraq is a tale of horror and suffering of a thoroughly Hitlerian sort. A mini-holocaust will be revealed. Saddam himself has said that he thought Hitler was "too mild". So, once the bestiality of Saddam's Ba'ath socialist regime can be thrust graphically in front of everyone's faces, what will Leftists say to the charge: "You supported this!" There will be nothing they can say. They could always say that their support for the vicious Stalin happened because they were "misled" by Stalin's claims of idealism. But the only people Saddam is misleading are the UN weapons inspectors. There is no idealism about him. Leftists must be brain-dead not to foresee how absurd the near future is going to make them look.

It would seem in fact that Leftists cannot deal with foresight at all. After the 9/11 attack on Americans and the Bali attack on Australians, the Leftists were all up in arms asking why did not the US and Australian governments foresee the coming attacks and do something to prevent them. Yet now that the US and Australian givernments DO foresee a grave danger from the weapons being developed by Saddam and are doing something to prevent him using them, the Leftists are opposing that: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. There really must be something missing in the brains of Leftists.

*****************************

ONE FOR THE FEMINIST EXTREMISTS TO PONDER

As the only girl among 12 brothers, you could be forgiven for thinking that Cerys Hughes would turn out to be a bit of a tomboy. But the pretty two-year-old is living proof that nature is stronger than nurture. "You really couldn't find a more girly girl," says her mother.

A U.S. Postal Service manager was forced to disrobe and walk naked in front of about a dozen employees yesterday morning by a colleague who threatened to kill her unless she complied. Lonnie Wilson, 60, who planned to retire on Friday, is in Summit County Jail, charged with kidnapping, aggravated menacing and gross sexual imposition.

OK. Normal nutcase stuff. But here's the punchline: What did the Postal Service do about it? It placed him "on administrative leave"! What does a government employee have to do to get sacked? More details at Sine Qua Non

*******************************

ELSEWHERE

Richard Webster has another dreadful report about false allegations of paedophilia in Britain. How anybody can be thrown out of his job before the matter goes to trial and how the police can prosecute a case so flimsy that the judge throws it out without even waiting to hear the defence I really do not know. “British justice” is beginning to sound like a mocking term.

Random Jottings says: “In A Credibility Problem (01/28/03) Paul Krugman unwittingly demonstrates with remarkable clarity that the real problem for U.S. liberals is reality itself. They are no longer in touch with it ......”

Ed Mick says: “Hooray for Oregon! Despite an orchestrated campaign warning of gloom and doom, Oregon voted down an income tax increase. This despite a heavy campaign by labor unions and almost no organized campaign on the other side.” If only we ever got that sort of choice in Australia.

Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

A favorite Leftist saying sums up the whole of Leftism: "To make an omelette, you've got to break eggs". They want to change some state of affairs and don't care who or what they destroy or damage in the process. They think their good intentions are sufficient to absolve them from all blame for even the most evil deeds

Leftists are the "we know best" people, meaning that they are intrinsically arrogant. Matthew chapter 6 would not be for them. And arrogance leads directly into authoritarianism

Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?

And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama

That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His excellent short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"

Many people in literary and academic circles today who once supported Stalin and his heirs are generally held blameless and may even still be admired whereas anybody who gave the slightest hint of support for the similarly brutal Hitler regime is an utter polecat and pariah. Why? Because Hitler's enemies were "only" the Jews whereas Stalin's enemies were those the modern day Left still hates -- people who are doing well for themselves materially. Modern day Leftists understand and excuse Stalin and his supporters because Stalin's hates are their hates.

Leftists believe only what they want to believe. So presenting evidence contradicting their beliefs simply enrages them. They do not learn from it

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves.

Leftists who think that they can conjure up paradise out of their own limited brains are simply fools -- arrogant and dangerous fools. They essentially know nothing. Conservatives learn from the thousands of years of human brains that have preceded us -- including the Bible, the ancient Greeks and much else. The death of Socrates is, for instance, an amazing prefiguration of the intolerant 21st century. Ask any conservative stranded in academe about his freedom of speech

Conservatives adapt to the world they live in. Leftists want to change the world to suit themselves

Given their dislike of the world they live in, it would be a surprise if Leftists were patriotic and loved their own people. Prominent English Leftist politician Jack Straw probably said it best: "The English as a race are not worth saving"

Why do conservatives respect tradition and rely on the past in many ways? Because they want to know what works and the past is the chief source of evidence on that. Leftists are more faith-based. They cling to their theories (e.g. global warming) with religious fervour, even though theories are often wrong

"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley"[go oft astray] is a well known line from a famous poem by the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns. But the next line is even wiser: "And leave us nought but grief and pain for promised joy". Burns was a Leftist of sorts so he knew how often theories fail badly.

Thinking that you "know best" is an intrinsically precarious and foolish stance -- because nobody does. Reality is so complex and unpredictable that it can rarely be predicted far ahead. Conservatives can see that and that is why conservatives always want change to be done gradually, in a step by step way. So the Leftist often finds the things he "knows" to be out of step with reality, which challenges him and his ego. Sadly, rather than abandoning the things he "knows", he usually resorts to psychological defence mechanisms such as denial and projection. He is largely impervious to argument because he has to be. He can't afford to let reality in.

A prize example of the Leftist tendency to projection (seeing your own faults in others) is the absurd Robert "Bob" Altemeyer, an acclaimed psychologist and father of a prominent Canadian Leftist politician. Altemeyer claims that there is no such thing as Leftist authoritarianism and that it is conservatives who are "Enemies of Freedom". That Leftists (e.g. Mrs Obama) are such enemies of freedom that they even want to dictate what people eat has apparently passed Altemeyer by. Even Stalin did not go that far. And there is the little fact that all the great authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Stalin, Hitler and Mao) were socialist. Freud saw reliance on defence mechanisms such as projection as being maladjusted. It is difficult to dispute that. Altemeyer is too illiterate to realize it but he is actually a good Hegelian. Hegel thought that "true" freedom was marching in step with a Left-led herd.

What libertarian said this? “The bureaucracy is a parasite on the body of society, a parasite which ‘chokes’ all its vital pores…The state is a parasitic organism”. It was VI Lenin, in August 1917, before he set up his own vastly bureaucratic state. He could see the problem but had no clue about how to solve it.

Leftist stupidity is a special class of stupidity. The people concerned are mostly not stupid in general but they have a character defect (mostly arrogance) that makes them impatient with complexity and unwilling to study it. So in their policies they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot; They fail to attain their objectives. The world IS complex so a simplistic approach to it CANNOT work.

"A man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart; A man who is still a socialist at age 30 has no head". Who said that? Most people attribute it to Winston but as far as I can tell it was first said by Georges Clemenceau, French Premier in WWI -- whose own career approximated the transition concerned. And he in turn was probably updating an earlier saying about monarchy versus Republicanism by Guizot. Other attributions here. There is in fact a normal drift from Left to Right as people get older. Both Reagan and Churchill started out as liberals

MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate. And you may not even survive at all. Stalin killed off all the old Bolsheviks.

MYTH BUSTING:

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

Just the name of Hitler's political party should be sufficient to reject the claim that Hitler was "Right wing" but Leftists sometimes retort that the name "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is not informative, in that it is the name of a dismal Stalinist tyranny. But "People's Republic" is a normal name for a Communist country whereas I know of no conservative political party that calls itself a "Socialist Worker's Party". Such parties are in fact usually of the extreme Left (Trotskyite etc.)

Most people find the viciousness of the Nazis to be incomprehensible -- for instance what they did in their concentration camps. But you just have to read a little of the vileness that pours out from modern-day "liberals" in their Twitter and blog comments to understand it all very well. Leftists haven't changed. They are still boiling with hate

Hatred as a motivating force for political strategy leads to misguided ­decisions. “Hatred is blind,” as Alexandre Dumas warned, “rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.”

Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Beatrice Webb, a founder of the London School of Economics and the Fabian Society, and married to a Labour MP, mused in 1922 on whether when English children were "dying from lack of milk", one should extend "the charitable impulse" to Russian and Chinese children who, if saved this year, might anyway die next. Besides, she continued, there was "the larger question of whether those races are desirable inhabitants" and "obviously" one wouldn't "spend one's available income" on "a Central African negro".

Hugh Dalton, offered the Colonial Office during Attlee's 1945-51 Labour government, turned it down because "I had a horrid vision of pullulating, poverty stricken, diseased nigger communities, for whom one can do nothing in the short run and who, the more one tries to help them, are querulous and ungrateful."

The book, The authoritarian personality, authored by T.W. Adorno et al. in 1950, has been massively popular among psychologists. It claims that a set of ideas that were popular in the "Progressive"-dominated America of the prewar era were "authoritarian". Leftist regimes always are authoritarian so that claim was not a big problem. What was quite amazing however is that Adorno et al. identified such ideas as "conservative". They were in fact simply popular ideas of the day but ones that had been most heavily promoted by the Left right up until the then-recent WWII. See here for details of prewar "Progressive" thinking.

Leftist psychologists have an amusingly simplistic conception of military organizations and military men. They seem to base it on occasions they have seen troops marching together on parade rather than any real knowledge of military men and the military life. They think that military men are "rigid" -- automatons who are unable to adjust to new challenges or think for themselves. What is incomprehensible to them is that being kadaver gehorsam (to use the extreme Prussian term for following orders) actually requires great flexibility -- enough flexibility to put your own ideas and wishes aside and do something very difficult. Ask any soldier if all commands are easy to obey.

It would be very easy for me to say that I am too much of an individual for the army but I did in fact join the army and enjoy it greatly, as most men do. In my observation, ALL army men are individuals. It is just that they accept discipline in order to be militarily efficient -- which is the whole point of the exercise. But that's too complex for simplistic Leftist thinking, of course

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. Allende had just burnt the electoral rolls so it wasn't hard to see what was coming. Pinochet pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a war criminal. Both British and American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code so FDR knew what was coming at Pearl Harbor. But for his own political reasons he warned no-one there. So responsibility for the civilian and military deaths at Pearl Harbor lies with FDR as well as with the Japanese. The huge firepower available at Pearl Harbor, both aboard ship and on land, could have largely neutered the attack. Can you imagine 8 battleships and various lesser craft firing all their AA batteries as the Japanese came in? The Japanese naval airforce would have been annihilated and the war would have been over before it began.

People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter: The average African adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old and African Americans (who are partly white in ancestry) average out at a mental age of 14. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for.

Was slavery already washed up by the tides of history before Lincoln took it on? Eric Williams in his book "Capitalism and Slavery" tells us: “The commercial capitalism of the eighteenth century developed the wealth of Europe by means of slavery and monopoly. But in so doing it helped to create the industrial capitalism of the nineteenth century, which turned round and destroyed the power of commercial capitalism, slavery, and all its works. Without a grasp of these economic changes the history of the period is meaningless.”

The 10 "cannots" (By William J. H. Boetcker) that Leftist politicians ignore:
*You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
* You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
* You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
* You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
* You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
* You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
* You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
* You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
* You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
* And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

A good short definition of conservative: "One who wants you to keep your hand out of his pocket."

Beware of good intentions. They mostly lead to coercion

A gargantuan case of hubris, coupled with stunning level of ignorance about how the real world works, is the essence of progressivism.

The U.S. Constitution is neither "living" nor dead. It is fixed until it is amended. But amending it is the privilege of the people, not of politicians or judges

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong - Thomas Sowell

Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal

"England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution" -- George Orwell

Was 16th century science pioneer Paracelsus a libertarian? His motto was "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself."

"When using today's model of society as a rule, most of history will be found to be full of oppression, bias, and bigotry." What today's arrogant judges of history fail to realize is that they, too, will be judged. What will Americans of 100 years from now make of, say, speech codes, political correctness, and zero tolerance - to name only three? Assuming, of course, there will still be an America that we, today, would recognize. Given the rogue Federal government spy apparatus, I am not at all sure of that. -- Paul Havemann

Economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973): "The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office."

It's the shared hatred of the rest of us that unites Islamists and the Left.

American liberals don't love America. They despise it. All they love is their own fantasy of what America could become. They are false patriots.

The Democratic Party: Con-men elected by the ignorant and the arrogant

The Democratic Party is a strange amalgam of elites, would-be elites and minorities. No wonder their policies are so confused and irrational

Why are conservatives more at ease with religion? Because it is basic to conservatism that some things are unknowable, and religious people have to accept that too. Leftists think that they know it all and feel threatened by any exceptions to that. Thinking that you know it all is however the pride that comes before a fall.

The characteristic emotion of the Leftist is not envy. It's rage

Leftists are committed to grievance, not truth

The British Left poured out a torrent of hate for Margaret Thatcher on the occasion of her death. She rescued Britain from chaos and restored Britain's prosperity. What's not to hate about that?

The world's dumbest investor? Without doubt it is Uncle Sam. Nobody anywhere could rival the scale of the losses on "investments" made under the Obama administration

"Behind the honeyed but patently absurd pleas for equality is a ruthless drive for placing themselves (the elites) at the top of a new hierarchy of power" -- Murray Rothbard - Egalitarianism and the Elites (1995)

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -- G. Gordon Liddy

"World socialism as a whole, and all the figures associated with it, are shrouded in legend; its contradictions are forgotten or concealed; it does not respond to arguments but continually ignores them--all this stems from the mist of irrationality that surrounds socialism and from its instinctive aversion to scientific analysis... The doctrines of socialism seethe with contradictions, its theories are at constant odds with its practice, yet due to a powerful instinct these contradictions do not in the least hinder the unending propaganda of socialism. Indeed, no precise, distinct socialism even exists; instead there is only a vague, rosy notion of something noble and good, of equality, communal ownership, and justice: the advent of these things will bring instant euphoria and a social order beyond reproach." -- Solzhenitsyn

"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." -- Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. -- Thomas Jefferson

"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power" -- Bertrand Russell

Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)

The Republicans are the gracious side of American politics. It is the Democrats who are the nasty party, the haters

Wanting to stay out of the quarrels of other nations is conservative -- but conservatives will fight if attacked or seriously endangered. Anglo/Irish statesman Lord Castlereagh (1769-1822), who led the political coalition that defeated Napoleon, was an isolationist, as were traditional American conservatives.

Some useful definitions:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed. If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone. If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him. If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down. If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!) If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

There is better evidence for creation than there is for the Leftist claim that “gender” is a “social construct”. Most Leftist claims seem to be faith-based rather than founded on the facts

Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.

America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course

Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left

Gore Vidal: "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little". Vidal was of course a Leftist

The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left. Some evidence here showing that envy is not what defines the Left

Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.

The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.

Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.

Was Confucius a conservative? The following saying would seem to reflect good conservative caution: "The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."

The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here

The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.

Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

Leftist policies are candy-coated rat poison that may appear appealing at first, but inevitably do a lot of damage to everyone impacted by them.

A tribute and thanks to Mary Jo Kopechne. Her death was reprehensible but she probably did more by her death that she ever would have in life: She spared the world a President Ted Kennedy. That the heap of corruption that was Ted Kennedy died peacefully in his bed is one of the clearest demonstrations that we do not live in a just world. Even Joe Stalin seems to have been smothered to death by Nikita Khrushchev

I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful

The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

Even in the Old Testament they knew about "Postmodernism": "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

Was Solomon the first conservative? "The hearts of men are full of evil and madness is in their hearts" -- Ecclesiastes: 9:3 (RSV). He could almost have been talking about Global Warming.

Leftist hatred of Christianity goes back as far as the massacre of the Carmelite nuns during the French revolution. Yancey has written a whole book tabulating modern Leftist hatred of Christians. It is a rival religion to Leftism.

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises

Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses

Among intelligent people, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics. -- C.J. Keyser

Hell is paved with good intentions" -- Boswell's Life of Johnson of 1775

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.

Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.

Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance

Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state -- capitalism frees them.

Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter

Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amendment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.

The basic aim of all bureaucrats is to maximize their funding and minimize their workload

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Jesse Jackson: "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." There ARE important racial differences.

Some Jimmy Carter wisdom: "I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated," he told advisers in 1979. "there's going to be a downward turning."

The "steamroller" above who got steamrollered by his own hubris. Spitzer is a warning of how self-destructive a vast ego can be -- and also of how destructive of others it can be.

Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable

Big business is not your friend. As Adam Smith said: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary

How can I accept the Communist doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values. -- John Maynard Keynes

Some wisdom from "Bron" Waugh: "The purpose of politics is to help them [politicians] overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power"

"There are countless horrible things happening all over the country, and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible"

The urge to pass new laws must be seen as an illness, not much different from the urge to bite old women. Anyone suspected of suffering from it should either be treated with the appropriate pills or, if it is too late for that, elected to Parliament [or Congress, as the case may be] and paid a huge salary with endless holidays, to do nothing whatever"

"It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled"

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were. Freedom needs a soldier

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in my MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

"It breaks my heart to see (I can't interfere or do anything at my age) what is happening in our country today - this terrible strike of the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's army and beat Hitler's army, and never gave in. Pointless, endless. We can't afford that kind of thing. And then this growing division which the noble Lord who has just spoken mentioned, of a comparatively prosperous south, and an ailing north and midlands. That can't go on." -- Mac on the British working class: "the best men in the world" (From his Maiden speech in the House of Lords, 13 November 1984)

"As a Conservative, I am naturally in favour of returning into private ownership and private management all those means of production and distribution which are now controlled by state capitalism"

During Macmillan's time as prime minister, average living standards steadily rose while numerous social reforms were carried out

JEWS AND ISRAEL

The Bible is an Israeli book

To me, hostility to the Jews is a terrible tragedy. I weep for them at times. And I do literally put my money where my mouth is. I do at times send money to Israeli charities

My (Gentile) opinion of antisemitism: The Jews are the best we've got so killing them is killing us.

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" -- Genesis 12:3

"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: They shall prosper that love thee" Psalm 122:6.

If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy -- Psalm 137 (NIV)

Israel, like the Jews throughout history, is hated not for her vices but her virtues. Israel is hated, as the United States is hated, because Israel is successful, because Israel is free, and because Israel is good. As Maxim Gorky put it: “Whatever nonsense the anti-Semites may talk, they dislike the Jew only because he is obviously better, more adroit, and more willing and capable of work than they are.” Whether driven by culture or genes—or like most behavior, an inextricable mix—the fact of Jewish genius is demonstrable." -- George Gilder

To Leftist haters, all the basic rules of liberal society — rejection of hate speech, commitment to academic freedom, rooting out racism, the absolute commitment to human dignity — go out the window when the subject is Israel.

I have always liked the story of Gideon (See Judges chapters 6 to 8) and it is surely no surprise that in the present age Israel is the Gideon of nations: Few in numbers but big in power and impact.

Is the Israel Defence Force the most effective military force per capita since Genghis Khan? They probably are but they are also the most ethically advanced military force that the world has ever seen

If I were not an atheist, I would believe that God had a sense of humour. He gave his chosen people (the Jews) enormous advantages -- high intelligence and high drive -- but to keep it fair he deprived them of something hugely important too: Political sense. So Jews to this day tend very strongly to be Leftist -- even though the chief source of antisemitism for roughly the last 200 years has been the political Left!

And the other side of the coin is that Jews tend to despise conservatives and Christians. Yet American fundamentalist Christians are the bedrock of the vital American support for Israel, the ultimate bolthole for all Jews. So Jewish political irrationality seems to be a rather good example of the saying that "The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away". There are many other examples of such perversity (or "balance"). The sometimes severe side-effects of most pharmaceutical drugs is an obvious one but there is another ethnic example too, a rather amusing one. Chinese people are in general smart and patient people but their rate of traffic accidents in China is about 10 times higher than what prevails in Western societies. They are brilliant mathematicians and fearless business entrepreneurs but at the same time bad drivers!

Conservatives, on the other hand, could be antisemitic on entirely rational grounds: Namely, the overwhelming Leftism of the Diaspora Jewish population as a whole. Because they judge the individual, however, only a tiny minority of conservative-oriented people make such general judgments. The longer Jews continue on their "stiff-necked" course, however, the more that is in danger of changing. The children of Israel have been a stiff necked people since the days of Moses, however, so they will no doubt continue to vote with their emotions rather than their reason.

I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.

The above is good testimony to the accuracy of the basic conservative insight that almost anything in human life is too complex to be reduced to any simple rule and too complex to be reduced to any rule at all without allowance for important exceptions to the rule concerned

Amid their many virtues, one virtue is often lacking among Jews in general and Israelis in particular: Humility. And that's an antisemitic comment only if Hashem is antisemitic. From Moses on, the Hebrew prophets repeatedy accused the Israelites of being "stiff-necked" and urged them to repent. So it's no wonder that the greatest Jewish prophet of all -- Jesus -- not only urged humility but exemplified it in his life and death

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.

Karl Marx hated just about everyone. Even his father, the kindly Heinrich Marx, thought Karl was not much of a human being

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there'd be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there'd be genocide.

Alfred Dreyfus, a reminder of French antisemitism still relevant today

Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"

UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.

I imagine that few of my readers will understand it, but I am an unabashed monarchist. And, as someone who was born and bred in a monarchy and who still lives there (i.e. Australia), that gives me no conflicts at all. In theory, one's respect for the monarchy does not depend on who wears the crown but the impeccable behaviour of the present Queen does of course help perpetuate that respect. Aside from my huge respect for the Queen, however, my favourite member of the Royal family is the redheaded Prince Harry. The Royal family is of course a military family and Prince Harry is a great example of that. As one of the world's most privileged people, he could well be an idle layabout but instead he loves his life in the army. When his girlfriend Chelsy ditched him because he was so often away, Prince Harry said: "I love Chelsy but the army comes first". A perfect military man! I doubt that many women would understand or approve of his attitude but perhaps my own small army background powers my approval of that attitude.

I imagine that most Americans might find this rather mad -- but I believe that a constitutional Monarchy is the best form of government presently available. Can a libertarian be a Monarchist? I think so -- and prominent British libertarian Sean Gabb seems to think so too! Long live the Queen! (And note that Australia ranks well above the USA on the Index of Economic freedom. Heh!)

Throughout Europe there is an association between monarchism and conservatism. It is a little sad that American conservatives do not have access to that satisfaction. So even though Australia is much more distant from Europe (geographically) than the USA is, Australia is in some ways more of an outpost of Europe than America is! Mind you: Australia is not very atypical of its region. Australia lies just South of Asia -- and both Japan and Thailand have greatly respected monarchies. And the demise of the Cambodian monarchy was disastrous for Cambodia

Throughout the world today, possession of a U.S. or U.K. passport is greatly valued. I once shared that view. Developments in recent years have however made me profoundly grateful that I am a 5th generation Australian. My Australian passport is a door into a much less oppressive and much less messed-up place than either the USA or Britain

Following the Sotomayor precedent, I would hope that a wise older white man such as myself with the richness of that experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than someone who hasn’t lived that life.

IQ and ideology: Most academics are Left-leaning. Why? Because very bright people who have balls go into business, while very bright people with no balls go into academe. I did both with considerable success, which makes me a considerable rarity. Although I am a born academic, I have always been good with money too. My share portfolio even survived the GFC in good shape. The academics hate it that bright people with balls make more money than them.

I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak. Some might conclude that I must therefore be a very confused sort of atheist but I can assure everyone that I do not feel the least bit confused. The New Testament is a lighthouse that has illumined the thinking of all sorts of men and women and I am deeply grateful that it has shone on me.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age. Conservatism is in touch with reality. Leftism is not.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address

Most teenagers have sporting and movie posters on their bedroom walls. At age 14 I had a map of Taiwan on my wall.

"Remind me never to get this guy mad at me" -- Instapundit

It seems to be a common view that you cannot talk informatively about a country unless you have been there. I completely reject that view but it is nonetheless likely that some Leftist dimbulb will at some stage aver that any comments I make about politics and events in the USA should not be heeded because I am an Australian who has lived almost all his life in Australia. I am reluctant to pander to such ignorance in the era of the "global village" but for the sake of the argument I might mention that I have visited the USA 3 times -- spending enough time in Los Angeles and NYC to get to know a fair bit about those places at least. I did however get outside those places enough to realize that they are NOT America.

"Intellectual" = Leftist dreamer. I have more publications in the academic journals than almost all "public intellectuals" but I am never called an intellectual and nor would I want to be. Call me a scholar or an academic, however, and I will accept either as a just and earned appellation

My academic background

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 65 at the time of writing in 2009. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here

I completed the work for my Ph.D. at the end of 1970 but the degree was not awarded until 1974 -- due to some academic nastiness from Seymour Martin Lipset and Fred Emery. A conservative or libertarian who makes it through the academic maze has to be at least twice as good as the average conformist Leftist. Fortunately, I am a born academic.

Despite my great sympathy and respect for Christianity, I am the most complete atheist you could find. I don't even believe that the word "God" is meaningful. I am not at all original in that view, of course. Such views are particularly associated with the noted German philosopher Rudolf Carnap. Unlike Carnap, however, none of my wives have committed suicide

Very occasionally in my writings I make reference to the greats of analytical philosophy such as Carnap and Wittgenstein. As philosophy is a heavily Leftist discipline however, I have long awaited an attack from some philosopher accusing me of making coat-trailing references not backed by any real philosophical erudition. I suppose it is encouraging that no such attacks have eventuated but I thought that I should perhaps forestall them anyway -- by pointing out that in my younger days I did complete three full-year courses in analytical philosophy (at 3 different universities!) and that I have had papers on mainstream analytical philosophy topics published in academic journals

As well as being an academic, I am an army man and I am pleased and proud to say that I have worn my country's uniform. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and there is JUST ONE saying of Hitler's that I rather like. It may not even be original to him but it is found in chapter 2 of Mein Kampf (published in 1925): "Widerstaende sind nicht da, dass man vor ihnen kapituliert, sondern dass man sie bricht". The equivalent English saying is "Difficulties exist to be overcome" and that traces back at least to the 1920s -- with attributions to Montessori and others. Hitler's metaphor is however one of smashing barriers rather than of politely hopping over them and I am myself certainly more outspoken than polite. Hitler's colloquial Southern German is notoriously difficult to translate but I think I can manage a reasonable translation of that saying: "Resistance is there not for us to capitulate to but for us to break". I am quite sure that I don't have anything like that degree of determination in my own life but it seems to me to be a good attitude in general anyway

I have used many sites to post my writings over the years and many have gone bad on me for various reasons. So if you click on a link here to my other writings you may get a "page not found" response if the link was put up some time before the present. All is not lost, however. All my writings have been reposted elsewhere. If you do strike a failed link, just take the filename (the last part of the link) and add it to the address of any of my current home pages and -- Voila! -- you should find the article concerned.

COMMENTS: I have gradually added comments facilities to all my blogs. The comments I get are interesting. They are mostly from Leftists and most consist either of abuse or mere assertions. Reasoned arguments backed up by references to supporting evidence are almost unheard of from Leftists. Needless to say, I just delete such useless comments.

You can email me here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR" -- and that preference has NOTHING to do with an American soap opera that featured a character who was referred to in that way

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here